et Occidente_.'"

Perronel looked alarmed. "The Queen deemed her heretic in grain! Ah!
She is a good wench, and of kind conditions. I would have no ill befall
her, but I am glad to be rid of her. Sir Thomas--he is a wise man, ay,
and a married man, with maidens of his own, and he may have more wit in
the business than the rest of his kind. Be the matter instant?"

"Methinks Sir Thomas would have it so, since this being a holy day, the
courts be not sitting, and he is himself at home, so that he can present
the maid to his lady. And that makes no small odds."

"Yea, but what the lady is makes the greater odds to the maid, I trow,"
said Perronel anxiously.

"Fear not on that score. Dame Alice More is of kindly conditions, and
will be good to any whom her lord commends to her; and as to the young
ladies, never saw I any so sweet or so wise as the two elder ones,
specially Mistress Margaret."

"Well-a-day! What must be must!" philosophically observed Perronel.
"Now I have my wish, I could mourn over it. I am loth to part with the
wench; and my man, when he comes home, will make an outcry for his
pretty Ally; but 'tis best so. Come, Alice, girl, bestir thyself.
Here's preferment for thee."

Aldonza raised her great soft eyes in slow wonder, and when she had
heard what was to befall her, declared that she wanted no advancement,
and wished only to remain with mother Perronel. Nay, she clung to the
kind woman, beseeching that she might not be sent away from the only
motherly tenderness she had ever known, and declaring that she would
work all day and all night rather than leave her; but the more
reluctance she showed, the more determined was Perronel, and she could
not but submit to her fate, only adding one more entreaty that she might
take her jackdaw, which was now a spruce grey-headed bird. Perronel
said it would be presumption in a waiting-woman, but Ambrose declared
that at Chelsea there were all manner of beasts and birds, beloved by
the children and by their father himself, and that he believed the daw
would be welcome. At any rate, if the lady of the house objected to it,
it could return with Mistress Randall.

Perronel hurried the few preparations, being afraid that Giles might
take advantage of the holiday to appear on the scene, and presently
Aldonza was seated in the boat, making no more lamentations after she
found that her fate was inevitable, but sitting silent, with downcast
head, now and